PGA Tour 486 (PC) Playthrough
114A playthrough of Electronic Arts' 1994 golf game for PCs running Dos, PGA Tour 486.
This playthrough shows a round played on each of the game's three courses along with some of the stuff included on all the PGA players featured in the game. Finally, a digitized avatar of the golf world's walrus darling Craig Stadler takes on Brad Faxon in a finale fit for the ages.
TPC at Summerlin. Las Vegas, NV 0:50
TPC at Sawgrass. Ponte Vedra, FL 26:51
TPC at River Highlands. Cromwell, CT 53:09
The PGA Tour Pros 1:20:16
Craig Stadler v. Brad Faxon 1:22:59
Preceded by PGA Tour III on the Sega Genesis and followed by PGA Tour 96 for the PC, 3DO, and PlayStation, PGA Tour 486 was the fourth main entry in EA's line-up of golf games that were officially licensed by the Professional Golfers' Association.
PGA Tour 486 was a big deal for sports games when it came out. It was an ambitious, big budget approach to golf that took a lot of design cues from Access's Links series, but it upped the stakes considerably.
It strove to mimic the look and feel of a TV broadcast and the results are still pretty striking today. The courses are rendered in 3D allowing for instant camera cuts to different angles, the golfers and the scenery are all made up of high resolution digitized sprites, and flashy broadcast-style graphics are used to provide all the info you need to make your shot. The commentators regularly offer up advice on how to sink tough shots as birds chirp in the background, the lively crowd reacts appropriately to your shots, and the music piped in during the menus and loading screens is fantastic.
It does an amazing job for the hardware it runs on, though the title is a bit misleading. It runs alright on a 486 (it will run on a 386 if you're determined to not have fun) but you'd have to deal with excessively long load times between each hole and shot. You needed a Pentium-class machine with a triple or quad-speed CD-ROM drive to get the most out of the game, and that was a very tall order in 1994.
But is easy to see why PGA Tour 486 needed that type of hardware muscle. It was an incredible looking game. But more importantly, it was a thoroughly enjoyable way to get your video game golf on. At least, I always thought so as a kid playing it.
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No cheats were used during the recording of this video.
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